


Eventide

by SilverShadowBeliever (TotooftheSouth)



Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Gen, The Twilight Forest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-14
Updated: 2013-10-09
Packaged: 2017-12-23 11:04:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/925627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TotooftheSouth/pseuds/SilverShadowBeliever
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Twilight Forest is an ancient realm, as dangerous as it is beautiful. Most troubling, however, is its absolutely fixed nature. Ridgedog has always hated immutable things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue - The Shared Apprentice

Ridge felt each tear as it opened, sensing space itself shudder and creak before rending apart to reveal a buzzing static, shivering just beyond each rip. The sensation was jarring and, for a moment, he forgot himself. If anyone had been watching, they’d be unsure of what exactly it was they’d seen, unable to comprehend the infinite nature of the being that briefly occupied the space where Ridge had been standing an instant before.

It only lasted a moment and then he was back, wearing look of utter disdain. Mortals were truly incorrigible. He felt each one, just a couple for the moment, as they vanished. Whole existences swallowed up by that infuriating buzzing and he found himself sorely tempted to fix the torn space, to patch it up, reinforce it and leave them to that godforsaken realm. Good riddance.

He ran his hand through his hair and sighed. Even he wasn’t that cruel.

Well. He was, but he’d been trying so hard recently to not be. If only because he was inexplicably, idiotically fond of this particular set, reckless and self destructive as they were. That and the fact that he had responsibilities now. It wouldn’t do to set a bad example for Nano. She was such an impressionable, fumbling young thing.

Two- no, three more disappeared and Ridge grimaced.

Anyway, it was a teachable moment, if nothing else. Ridge shut his eyes, adamantly ignoring the annoying whine of white noise that now wriggled at the periphery of his senses and shifted.

-

“Nano? What’s wrong?”

Sjin shook the unresponsive girl, slapping her gently on the cheek. Her eyes were blank, unseeing, and her mouth had gone slack. Uneasily, he glanced towards the setting sun. Already, he could hear things starting to shuffle around in the darker corners of the farm, just beyond the torchlight. Still, Nano showed no signs of awareness.

The change had been sudden. Just moments ago, she’d been teasing him about his ridiculous half-windows, threatening to seal them up as he slept, for his own good. Then, it was as if someone had flipped a switch. She’d stopped talking mid-sentence, and now stood eerily still, staring at some vague point in the distance.

The sun sank lower, becoming just a thin sliver of gold over the horizon and Sjin came to a decision.

“Okay, up we go,” he muttered, crouching and wrapping his arm around her waist. With a light heave, he hoisted her up over his shoulder and made for the house, glancing around furtively. She offered no resistance and he carried the petite girl easily, hurrying through the entrance and securing the doors behind them. Once they’d reached the upstairs bedroom, he set her down on the spare bed, concern growing when she tumbled limply to the mattress, gazing at the ceiling with that same soulless stare.

“Hey,” he said, “Come on, now. That’s really creepy.”

“It is, isn’t it?”

Sjin jumped, badly startled, and whipped around, banging his hip painfully against the bedside chest.

Ridge stood beside him, arms crossed. He looked over Nano grimly and dread prickled along the back of Sjin’s neck. From past experience, the appearance of the Ridgedog was always a good indication that things were about to go to hell in a hand basket.

“Is- uh.. is she okay?” he asked, torn between edging away and stepping between Ridge and the prone figure on the bed. He knew that Ridge was theoretically the exact person Nano needed right now but.. well, she was his apprentice too. Even if he was just teaching her about farming.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” said Ridge, lips quirked in amusement. “Cultivating life and reaping it are important skills for a young deity to learn too. It can’t all be ancient wisdom and weaving the fabric of reality.”

He knew that he was probably being mocked, but Ridge’s tone was kind and Sjin decided that it was probably better to take it as a compliment and move on.

“Is she,” he waved his hand helplessly in her direction, “… sick?” Did gods even get sick?

“In a sense,” said Ridge, with a shrug, “I’m not feeling too well myself, to be honest, but it’s not too bad, all things considered. She’s holding up surprisingly well for being so new.”

He reached out and brushed his knuckles along her cheek and Sjin watched in fascination as her eyes fluttered shut, her body arching up at an alarming angle. It was only as she drew a rattling breath that he realized that she hadn’t been breathing, and he was disturbed to realize that he couldn’t remember when she’d stopped. She jackknifed off the bed and opened her eyes, looking around the room wildly.

“It’s okay,” he rubbed her back soothingly and her panicked breathing began to calm, though she still looked distressed. “How do you feel?”

“Like crap,” she croaked, pressing the heels of her palms to her eyes. Lowering her shaking hands, she looked up at Ridge, brow furrowed. “What the hell was that?”

Ridge was pensive for a moment before he sat at the edge of the other bed, adjusting himself carefully so as to not wrinkle his coat and motioning for Sjin to have a seat as well.

“Get comfortable,” he said, “We have a lot to discuss.”


	2. The Twilight Forest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, I’m having too much fun writing this, I think. The railbros, in particular, are always a pleasure to write. :3 Short starter chapter but I’m still getting my bearings with this.

Ridge looked back and forth between the brothers before him with something like glee. Such a strange and marvelous set of twins, born of the fire and metal of the rails themselves, just enough humanity thrown into the mix to keep them soft and vulnerable and mortal. Half-breeds of a different sort, he supposed, though he did feel a certain amount of kinship with them, nonetheless. A fine set, in any case, to add to his growing menagerie of lesser beings.

“I’ll pull you back every time,” he said, grinning. “If you ask me nicely enough.”

“Don’t fuck with us,” snapped Strippin, but his eyes held fear and awe in equal measure, and that was just perfect.

“Say, ‘Please’,” Ridge continued, as if he hadn’t spoken. His smile had become vicious, all teeth, and for the first time since they were children, Benji found himself wanting to hide behind his twin. “’Please, oh, please, Ridgedog, we’ve been such good little boys,’ and, poof! Right back in your beds, safe and sound.”

-

As it turned out, Benji was the first to fall in this strange new realm, and he did so in the most literal sense. A careless step had sent him tumbling over the side of the glacier they’d been scaling, curious as to what lay at the top. Even as he’d plummeted, he hadn’t been concerned, already shuffling around for the slim, golden cord that tied him to Ridge.

Gone It was gone. How could it be gone?

Please, he thought. Pleasepleasepleaseplease….

The branches of a tall oak whipped past him and he opened his mouth to scream, only managing a feeble half-shriek (the first syllable of Strippin’s name) before he slammed into the ground and every tiny bit of air was forced out of his lungs by his ribs, which snapped shut like a bear trap. The most exquisite pain coursed through him and even as he vaguely thought about how pathetic it was that the last word on his lips before death had almost been his brother’s name, he prayed for the end. Anything to stop the excruciating throbbing throughout his body.

He floundered, thoughts in shambles, and couldn’t help but think, shouldn’t this be it? Wasn’t death supposed to be black and numb and final? Or if he wasn’t going to die, shouldn’t he be waking up in his bed right this second, whole and healthy, with only the barest memory of discomfort?

Why, then, was he so painfully alive and awake now, gazing at the broken tree branches above him and the sky just beyond?

He gurgled, the copper tang of blood bubbling up past his lips and tried to call for his brother, drawing a rattling breath.

Please.

He closed his eyes and-

Benji awoke, chilled to the bone. The pain was fading now, like an echo, but it’s memory still left him paralyzed, afraid to move. It receded a little and he shifted, lifting a hand to press against his chest, feeling his ribs through his shirt. They ached terribly but felt whole and he sucked in freezing air.

Opening his eyes, he sat up, feeling every joint in his body protest, and saw Strippin, standing atop the last of their makeshift stairs. With a jolt, he realized that he was back atop the glacier.

Strippin stood frozen, blinking stupidly at him.

“You fell,” he said softly, looking over the edge of the ice and then back at Benji, “I just saw you fall. Shouldn’t you be at home?.”

Benji swallowed and tasted copper on the back of his tongue, licked his lips and tasted more- he must look ghastly right now. He touched his chin and the skin around his mouth, fingers catching on the tacky blood coating the area. Inhaling, his chest ached and he began to suspect that the pain was more than just an echo of before.

“I think we should go back,” said Benji, a feeling of dread settling in his stomach. “There’s something wrong with this place.”

Strippin hesitated, stared at the blood smeared around Benji’s mouth, and nodded. “Okay.”

With some difficulty, Benji got to his feet and stumbled towards his brother. Strippin faltered for a moment, before reaching out to lend his shoulder.

“Careful,” Benji muttered when Strippin’s legs threatened to slip out from under him in his attempts to correct for the change in equilibrium. “There’s no divine dickhead around to save us if we both go over.”

Strippin looked at him sharply. “Ridge is…?”

Benji shook his head and shrugged. “I don’t know what happened, but his weird god voodoo or whatever wasn’t there when I reached for it.”

Strippin’s expression became troubled and the two remained silent as they scaled back down the side of the glacier. The sheer drop now seemed infinitely more terrifying without their metaphysical safety net, and despite their shared company, neither could remember a time when they’d felt more alone.

-

Their surroundings were cast in absolute darkness, not a single shaft of sunlight permeating the dense canopy above them. Rythian paced nervously around the small circle of light given off by their portal, stopping now and again to peer into the gloom. He thought he saw glittering points of luminescence within the darkness every now and again but he couldn’t be sure. Ways out of this black forest or just more of the strange glowing mushrooms that seemed native to these lands? He didn’t trust the odds enough to venture forth and find out.

Zoey knelt a short distance behind him, before a small patch of the glowing caps that had drawn them to this realm. Teep watched her with his head cocked to the side, tail twitching as his eyes darted suspiciously between her and the fungi.

“I still don’t understand most of what they’re saying,” she said, eyes screwed shut in concentration. “But I think they call themselves Mushglooms.”

“That’s enough,” said Rythian, casting a final wary glance into the forest before turning to face her. “We should go back.”

“I’m fine,” said Zoey, a little too brightly. “Besides, we should take a look around.”

But Rythian caught the small wince as she stood and frowned. She was intrigued by this realm and he’d freely admit that it was certainly novel but, still, the air felt wrong. There was a sensation of dissonance as he looked at the thick, twisted trees that surrounded them. Despite the thriving life he saw everywhere he looked, everything seemed… stagnant.

Even more disturbing… He looked down at Enderbane and ran his thumb along its hilt. The usual sting was muted, an uncomfortable buzz against his skin rather than a searing heat, and the Ender pearl embedded in the athame’s hilt appeared dim and clouded.

“Rythian, are you coming?”

He looked up, startled from his thoughts, and saw that Zoey and Teep had already gone several yards ahead and were now barely discernible. If not for Teep’s eyeshine glinting eerily back at him, he’d have had a hard time picking their silhouettes out from the rest of the vague shapes in the shadows. Hastily he sheathed his blade and reached into his pack.

“Wait!” he called, drawing out a bit of glowstone and trotting to catch up with them. “We shouldn’t go without light.”

It was a pitiful light source, barely illuminating the ground around their feet but Rythian decided he’d rather have something more easily concealed than a torch should they come across anything aggressive within the woods. Better to hide than fight anything in this darkness.

They proceeded deeper into the forest, their portal growing smaller and smaller behind them until it was swallowed up by the gloom.


	3. Lamb and Knife

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! Took a while before I was satisfied with this because Rythian. *shakes fist* But, here it is! Huge thanks to Countthelions and Torquent for their comments and suggestions, which helped immensely. The actual best beta readers. :)

The three sat in grave silence. Ridge looked distant, head tilted to one side as if he were listening to some far off sound, though Nano couldn’t understand how he could hear anything through all the static. The incessant buzz was making her head throb and she pressed the heels of her palms into her aching eyes.

Sjin paced the room, clearly troubled by what Ridge had told them. The sun had just begun to peek over the horizon and he paused by the window, gazing out at the bruised sky.

“What are we going to do?” Nano looked towards Ridge, who sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. For once, his face was void of any trace of amusement.

“Well, first,” he said, “we have to make sure no one else wanders in. It’s going to be hard enough getting those six back. Sjin, I’ll leave that to you.”

Sjin nodded, tugging thoughtfully at his beard. “If I leave today, I can probably make it to Lalna’s by nightfall and pick Sips up on the way. From there, it’ll be easy to get to the others. But…” He frowned. “Lomadia and Nilesy will be hard to reach.”

Ridge smiled slightly. “I wouldn’t worry too much. Lo knows the dangers of that place better than anyone.” He sounded almost nostalgic.

“What about us?” asked Nano.

Ridge rose from the bed. “You and I are going to be busy. How do you feel?”

“Awful,” she replied. “And kind of prickly, but I think I can manage.” Gingerly, she attempted to stand and he put a hand out to steady her. Her legs held but she still felt sore and she grimaced at the uncomfortable sensation of pins and needles that swept across her skin whenever she moved.

“We’ll be finding the tears and mending them,” he said. “It’ll be best if we only have one opening to keep track of when we go through.”

Nano nodded before making her way carefully over to Sjin, who was watching her anxiously. She tried for a reassuring smile and he winced, so she went for a hug instead.

“I’ll be okay,” she said, “You just make sure none of those other losers get lost.” Squeezing her tightly, he let out a small chuckle and she felt a little bit better. When she pulled away, he smiled archly.

“Godspeed, Nano.”

She gave him a flat look. “Yeah, funny. Almost as good as the first two thousand times you said it.”

He shrugged and waved her off, still grinning. She went to Ridge, who’d been waiting patiently, and took his hand when he offered it. Over her head, Sjin gave Ridge a pointed look and the demigod responded with a solemn nod.

Then, they were gone.

-

The silence was oppressive. Even Zoey’s chatter had tapered off after the first few hours, once the exhaustion had set in. Having to move so carefully in such absolute darkness was starting to take a serious toll. Even at a virtual crawl, one of them would occasionally be sent sprawling over a snarl of roots or into a shallow pond and even the light of their glowstones barely made a difference.

To make things worse, every one of Rythian’s senses were screaming at him to flee, escape this strange realm and never come back. It was as if, on some primal level, he knew that there was something wrong with this forest. Several times, he’d place his hand against a tree trunk to steady himself only to physically recoil from it, heart hammering in his throat. In these instances, he felt bark beneath his hands but the image of a corpse, stiff and bloated, would flash through his mind. He tried, in vain, to chalk it up to the dark getting to him.

Not wanting to think about it too deeply, lest he panic, he tried to focus on their destination instead. A steady, far off glow had become visible to them some time ago, elongating and intensifying as they progressed. He was almost certain it marked the end of the forest but it’s apparent distance was disheartening. Still, it was something. He was determined to get out of these maddening woods, if nothing else.

Teep seemed to be faring no better. As they progressed, his steps grew more and more uneasy and he’d stop frequently to pace in agitated circles. Had the mage not been so keen on reaching that distant light as quickly as possible, he might have been just as cautious.

“Rythian.” Something in Zoey’s hushed tone made him stop cold, and he looked back to find her staring at Teep.

The dinosaur was pressed low, nearly flat against the forest floor and eerily still. His pupils were blown wide and his jaw parted as he huffed and tasted the air. He growled quietly, a chilling sound, and Rythian instinctively reached for his sword. A papery hiss was their only warning before there was a flash of light, near blinding in it’s intensity.

For a brief instant their assailant was visible in stark quality, a skeletal frame draped in tattered cloth, before its projectile hit its mark and everything was again thrown into darkness. From Rythian’s side, Teep roared in pain and thrashed, his tail catching the mage’s feet and sweeping them out from under him. Before he even realized he was falling, Rythian’s head collided with the earth painfully and he lay there for a moment, dazed, as Teep snarled fiercely and charged.

“Are you okay?” He felt Zoey’s hand on his shoulder and her face came into focus just above him, her look of worry illuminated by the dim light of their glowstones. He sprang upright and grabbed her wrist. Wrenching the stone from her hand, he shoved both deep into his satchel, snuffing out the tiny bit of light they’d had.

“Let’s go!” Still holding her wrist tightly, he scrambled to his feet and began stumbling towards that distant glow, praying that it was indeed the edge of the wood.

“Wait! What about Teep?”

“He’ll be fine.” He’d have to be. Somewhere to their left, Teep roared again. Rythian’s foot caught a root and he barely maintained his balance, barreling forward even faster now.

Zoey stopped suddenly and Rythian stumbled, his arm having been yanked back painfully as the came to a halt. “Come on,” he snapped, trying to pull her along once more, but she dug her heels into the earth.

“We can’t leave him.” She jerked backwards and her hand slipped from his grasp. For an instant, alone in that pitch black and fingers grasping at nothing, Rythian panicked. He surged towards Zoey, reaching blindly and hoping she hadn’t gone too far. He caught her just above the elbow in a bruising grip and  _pulled._

She cried out and in the back of his mind, he registered the sickening pop her shoulder gave as it dislocated before shoving the thought aside viciously. Apologies would have to wait.  _He needed to get out._ Behind them, he heard the sound of Teep’s jaws snapping shut along with the crackle of bones splintering. There was an inhuman wail and another flash lit the forest in a single, quick pulse.

“ _Rythian_ ,” Zoey sobbed. He sprinted on, dragging her now.

When they broke the treeline, the sudden brightness was so exquisitely painful that his gait faltered and the two were sent crashing through the last bits of undergrowth, unconscious before their bodies had even hit the ground.

-

Panda’s first thought, upon waking, was that he’d fallen asleep outside in the bamboo patch again. He felt soaked through, a steady rain pelting his skin.

Then came the memories, along with the pain.

He let out a hoarse cry, curling in on himself at the echoes of searing heat. Images of a twisted castle, no rhyme or reason to its architecture, arose in his mind. And that… thing at the top. The creature’s horrible sunken face was the clearest memory of all. Corpse like, with great black hollows where eyes had once been, burned into his mind just as the black flames it had spewed forth had scorched his skin.

He opened his eyes and almost expected to see those dark tongues of fire flickering along his limbs. There was nothing, though his shorts were singed around the edges and soot stained several sizable patches of his body. He touched his arm cautiously, half fearing his flesh would peel away with the slightest pressure, but he merely smeared the soot and murky droplets left gray trails where they fell away. His skin still felt tender and uncomfortable, as though it were new and stretched too tightly over his frame but the pain, or the memory of it, was fading.

Sitting up, he pushed his dripping bangs out of his eyes and looked around. Dread pooled in the pit of his stomach when he realized that nothing in his immediate vicinity looked familiar. He couldn’t remember coming across marshlands in his initial explorations of this realm but, here he was, surrounded by tall grass and pools of fetid water. Sickly looking trees rose out of these on thick snarls of roots that seemed to writhe, like tangles of bloated snakes.

Panda shivered and drew his knees to his chest, trying to understand why he wasn’t at home. Curiously, he closed his eyes and reached out to Ridge, finding only emptiness where the demigod’s presence had shone so brilliantly in his mind before. A thrill of fear went through him at the discovery and, furrowing his brow in concentration, he tried again, reaching desperately within himself, only to achieve the same result.

“Hey,” his voice wavered, cracked, “Ridge? Can you hear me?”

His only reply was the sound of rain pattering around him. “Is this about that temple?” His throat was tight with fear and he swallowed, his tongue feeling swollen. “I’m really sorry. I’ll fix it, I swear!”

There was nothing.

His shivers were growing more violent and he realized that he’d likely freeze if he didn’t find some kind of shelter soon. He tried for Ridge one last time, failing again, before uncurling and staggering to his feet, muscles stiff with cold.

Teeth chattering and feeling hopelessly lost, he picked a direction and began to walk. He was so preoccupied with his own misery that it wasn’t until much later, after he’d been wading through swampland for several hours, that he realized that he hadn’t seen a single cloud in the sky since he’d woken up. He stopped short, chest deep in water that reeked of rot, and looked up to watch as rain poured from a sky filled with stars.

**Author's Note:**

> Initially, I just wanted to do something with the Twilight Forest, as it’s quite possibly my favorite mod ever. And then it got out of hand and suddenly, there were chapters. Why.


End file.
